Histoire Naturelle des Indes
4 of 122
Accession number: MA 3900
Credit: The Morgan Library & Museum. Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983.
Title: Histoire Naturelle des Indes [supplied on an 18th century title page]
Contents: 199 images of West Indian plants, animals and human life, with accompanying manuscript captions written in late sixteenth-century French.
Medium: Most of the illustrations consist of a black chalk underdrawing and a combination of pen and brown ink with watercolor; on some images selected areas have also been glazed with a gum.
Dimensions: Binding: 30 x 21 cm; individual leaves: 29.3 x 19.7 cm.
Binding: Bound or rebound in brown leather in the late 18th century.
Pagination: Penciled folio numbers (1–125) in lower right corner of each page were added by The Morgan Library & Museum. Folios 92v–93, 93v–94, and 95v–96 are fold-out leaves.
Histoire Naturelle des Indes
Havoqates (Avocado)
This fruit is found in the woods.
Honnes (Berries)
Very large berries growing in the woods which taste like a bunch of grapes of which the Indians make use and eat them. They get drunk with them and lose their senses. This fruit grows without labor or sowing by man but naturally.
Pinnes (Pineapple)
An exquisite fruit, extremely good, having the taste of raspberry; it grows on a tall tree where there can be found several, having the characteristic of growing rather down than up in contrast to the fruits of France. It is eaten raw with salt only to relieve the Indians of stomach pains.
Histoire Naturelle des Indes
Illustrated manuscript, ca. 1586
Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983; MA 3900 (fol. 3v–4)
